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Principals in Loudon County, Va., elementary schools will be surveyed to reveal whether they believe teachers are overworked, after concerns were raised about the amount of planning time teachers receive. "A lot of time that supposedly could be used for planning, is it being taken away by principals who deem it important to do other things?" asked Personnel Services Committee Chairman Tom Marshall. "Teachers do have time during the day, but in such small increments that it's meaningless for any kind of planning."

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Using a "less is more" approach, an ideal school structure would offer teachers more time for planning and collaboration, and fewer students and classes to teach, middle-school math teacher and coach Jose Vilson writes in this blog post. Vilson writes that teachers' current jam-packed schedules require trade-offs and reduce their effectiveness in some areas.

Students' reliance on digital devices may be weakening their face-to-face communication skills, Louisville, Ky., teacher Paul Barnwell writes in this commentary. After observing his high-school English class struggle to hold conversations, Barnwell realized "that conversational competence might be the single-most overlooked skill we fail to teach students." Barnwell goes on to suggest ways technology can be leveraged to teach students the art of conversation through recorded interviews or the creation of podcasts.

While some educators in Indonesia support lengthening instructional time for students, others disagree, saying that additional time spent in the classroom is not always effective. Research shows that in a given 40-minute class period, students wasted 12 minutes, and one official said it was possible added classroom time -- coupled with academic pursuits outside of school -- could be draining for students, teachers and parents.

The surveys showing that a majority of employees plan to jump ship as the economy improves may be wrong, Paul Hebert writes. He contends that employees may simply be responding to social pressure and saying they plan to leave because that's what these surveys show others are planning to do. To combat the problem, employers should highlight positive statistics about job satisfaction, and educate workers about how they can be manipulated by such surveys.

Educators say that young students spend less than 10 minutes each day learning about penmanship, including cursive, which has all but disappeared from classrooms as teachers fill class time preparing for mandatory state exams and teaching students about new technology. "Nowadays, parents would be pretty upset if we sent kids to handwriting camp," said Carl Brown, principal of Manatee Elementary in Viera, Fla. "Kids just don't write letters now. They send e-mails or text messages. ... A lot of those old ways are going away. How many bills do you pay by writing a check anymore?"